Arm Wrestling Jesus

 

I think it's about time we settle the whole Jesus/Son of God/Savior of Mankind 
thing once and for all.

After all, there's so much dispute about what Jesus said, what He did, what He 
meant, why He was here, even who He was.

Basically all of this comes down to the question about His divinity. That in one 
giant gulp swallows everything else. It's the elephant __ or maybe whale 
(see Jonah 1:17) __ in the room.

So I'm issuing a challenge to Jesus Christ personally, upon His return to Earth.

Here's my challenge . . .

When the Man-Who-Died-On-The-Cross-and-Lived-to-Tell-About-It returns to 
our sorry planet __ as we all know, this encore appearance is referred to among 
the reverent as the Second Coming __ we're going to first straight away settle the 
whole omnipotence thing.

After giving Him a few days much needed R and R to get His bearings and get
back up to Savior speed __ God knows what the jet lag must be coming that 
distance __ we're going to sit Him down to an arm wrestling contest. Yes, that's 
right. An arm wrestling contest!

Let's see what He's made of.

Let's see once and for all if He's really got the right stuff!

If Jesus wins, He will be crowned King of . . . of . . . well . . . everything.

If He loses, He owes us a big apology. Really big!. . . considering all of the 
time and money we've spent on cathedrals, churches, prayer books, pipe 
organs, hymnals, the Pope Mobile.

Let me state unequivocally, I think it's important here to pit Him against 
the best that the atheists have on their side. To be quite honest, I can't
really say I'm up to speed on atheist arm wrestling, so you folks out
there who are familiar, help me out here, by choosing from
among your heathen flock who you think can finally put Jesus in His
place. Seriously, give it your best shot! He may come off as a wimpy
preacher/philosopher/guru kind of guy __ generally these touchy-feeley
types are not exactly known for their athleticism __ but if He truly is
the Son of God and all-powerful as widely claimed, He's bringing more to
the table than steroid-soaked, pumped-up muscles. Certainly don't
underestimate Him. You might want to think David and Goliath. This calls
for brain and brawn. Jesus supposedly had a formidable bag of
tricks at His disposal first time around __ raising the dead, changing
water to wine, cripple maintenance and repair, leper healing, fishes and
loaves, water walking __ so He's definitely not a lightweight!

Folks, I'd say we're in for a real mega-event here, the veritable Super Bowl 
of Metaphysics! The World Series of Cosmology!  Why, I wouldn't be
surprised if Arm Wrestling Mania sets new pay-per-view records.

Then when this battle of the biceps is over __ and I have no personal stake 
in the outcome except for the life savings I placed on a bet with a rather 
tawdry bookie here in Japan __ I hope once and for all we have the 
answers we've been looking for and can move on to tackling the
bigger, more pressing questions of our troubled times.

Like . . .

Why did they kill off Will Gardner in the hit TV series "The Good Wife"?

WHY?!!



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Compassion Is The Fashion

 

Compassion is the love muscle of caring.

But a lot of the muscle flexing I see going on these days is more like body
building than world building. It looks great and makes the "flexer" feel
darn good about him or herself, but other than putting on an impressive
show, it doesn't get much done. And it actually may do some real harm.

Look at all of the crocodile tears over the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370.

Granted that this is a tragic, highly unexpected event. Whether pilot error,
pilot meltdown, mechanical failure, a vibrational burp in the harmonic
spectrum, or some hairline gash in the condom of the space-time continuum, 
it happened and represents a tragic loss for the families of the passengers.

But shit happens. None of us caused it. None of us can bring back to life the 
victims of this bizarre malfunction. None of us particularly needs this reminder 
that the world we live in, even those things we so fastidiously design and 
meticulously create, are not and never will be perfect. Certainly none of us 
can even do anything to prevent it from happening again. We have no idea 
even what happened.

So why themedia drama and obsessive news reports? And why the disproportionate
and OCD level of attention to a fluke, affecting 239 people who 99.9999%
of us didn't and will never know?

Well . . . we do know why the media gave this particular event so much attention. 
Yes, if it bleeds it leads. But now since the spurting of blood is down to a trickle, 
we find the story consignedto the "back pages" of the 24/7 cyber river of pseudo 
news and hand-wringing, gut-wrenching, love-muscle flexing. And like the switch
man at the local railway yard, we can send our trail of tears down another track. 
The Compassion Express is off to some brand new destination of manufactured grief.

During the unfolding of the Malaysian airliner crisis though, we really cared. 
We really felt for those victims __ the dead and their surviving relatives and friends. 
It really felt good to care about others. It really showed what a good space we were in. 
It really let those families know what a big concerned family the 7 billion of us are 
here on Earth.

Really?

Did anyonecheck with the families to see if they really wanted all that
attention? Did we forget about something called "privacy" or "solitary
mourning"? Do we actually think that mass, anonymous sharing of their
grief made any of those poor, sorrowful individuals feel any better? Did
anyone stop to think it might actually make them feel worse? Maybe a
big group hug from millions of television voyeurs wasn't such a great
idea?

During the sanctions imposed on Iraq for their invasion of Kuwait, lasting  
for twelve years from 1991 until 2003 when Saddam Hussein was finally 
toppled by the U.S. invasion, it is estimated that over 500,000 children died 
of malnutrition and lack of medical supplies and proper health care.

Articles reporting this horrible tragedy startedon the back pages and 
stayed there, or they disappeared entirely. There certainly was no outpouring 
of shared grief for the millions of Iraqi casualties resulting from our insidious 
foreign policies, including the death of over a half million children. 
No crocodile tears were shed outside of some very dedicated, truly caring 
on-the-ground aid organizations who saw first-hand the genocidal results 
of our cruel punishment of innocent civilians.

But there should have been.

What's the difference between Flight 370 and sanctions on Iraq?

While we had nothing to do with the vanishing of Malaysian Flight 370, 
we were directly responsible for the death of those innocent children. It 
was our government perpetrating this horror. We could have stopped it. 
We can  and should stopthings like this from ever happening again, because 
each one of us is implicitly involved. As citizens of a democracy, we are directly 
and personally responsible for the policies and actions that come out of our
often misguided representatives in Washington.

And when we murder 500,000 innocent children, that's something to cry about.

Unlike disappearing jetliners, it's something we could have done something about.

There is something we could do about right now.
 
Something we should and must do. That's ending the illegal, immoral,
and self-sabotaging murder of innocents with drones. It's estimated that  
just during the Obama presidency 2400 individuals have been killed by these 
impersonal weapons of our errant, self-defeating foreign policy. Estimates 
which run as high as 37% say many are completely innocent people, having 
absolutely no interest or role in terrorist activities against the U.S. or its allies, 
mere victims of our paranoid and extralegal campaign of assassinating militants. 
Often these folks were just attending weddings or other family events. 
A lot of the dead again are children.

The harsh truth is that we are all complicit in these murders. It's our government. 
It's our trigger-happy Congress and President who perpetuate this carnage.  
This is something we should be crying about.

Crying and yelling and screaming.

Do you feel it?



[ This originated at the author's personal web page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Broccoli Is Free Speech and Tractors Are Persons

 

Broccoli farmers celebrated today as the Supreme Court ruled in their favor,
declaring broccoli free speech and the tractors used on their farms to
be persons.

The implications of this controversial ruling are not entirely clear but are expected 
to be far-reaching.

The President has by executive order mandated that all public parking lots
now have a specially designated area next to the already required
handicapped parking zones, giving tractors priority parking.

Voter registration of tractors is expected to begin early next week. This will
heavily weight congressional representation in agricultural states.
With reapportionment, Nebraska and Kansas are expected to send as many
congressman to Washington DC as California and Texas. Pundits and
political analysts are saying this will tilt the House of Representatives even 
more to the right, as tractors tend to lean very conservative. It will also be 
a gigantic boost for proponents of prayer in schools, as most tractors are 
evangelical Christians.

Major banks will be sending out Visa applications to all farm vehicles. They
are leaving it to the vehicles themselves to sort out which fit the strict definition 
of tractor personhood referenced in the Supreme Court decision.

The free speech aspect of the decision is a little more complicated. Now that
broccoli has the same right to expression under the Bill of Rights as
human protoplasmic life forms and corporations, will this affect
placement in grocery store vegetable sections? How exactly will the
voice of broccoli be heard? It's not as if broccoli is all that popular
of a food that it might be used as payment for political favors. A
recent NBC/Times poll among prominent politicians at the national and
state level showed only a 17% approval rating for broccoli. These guys
are not going to be lining up and fighting their way to the front of a
feeding trough full of the green stuff unless it's the more traditional
green stuff of money.

On a more forthright note, a bill has been introduced in Congress, co-sponsored by
several legislators from Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Georgia, and
Mississippi, declaring broccoli to be the official National Vegetable, joining the 
Bald Eagle as the National Bird and the Oak as the National Tree.

One hotbedof contention which literally taken over the airwaves of talk radio
since the Supreme Court decision, is the question of evolution. There is
a core of fundamentalists in the Deep South who are objecting to the
notion that tractors are a product of the industrial revolution, the
final result of a long progression of increasingly sophisticated
man-made devices. One preacher in Alabama declared, "There's no way
you're gonna tell me that my tractor started as a wheelbarrow, then
magically turned into the fine machine it is today. By golly, I love my
tractor like I love my own children."

As might be expected, now that tractors have been declared persons, there have
already been massive book burnings across America of text books which
portray them as mere agricultural implements.

Moreover, piles of broccoli are now showing up in churches, often right on the
altars in front of the crucifixes. People have reported hearing voices
emanating from the broccoli, offering a message of hope and a promise of
a glorious world in the afterlife.

We should all be grateful that the nine judges sitting on the hallowed highest
court in the land have been instrumental in providing a new positive
direction for a nation that has recently been troubled by so much bad news 
and plagued by divisiveness.

This is surely something we can all get behind.



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Extreme? Radical? Or just realistic?

 

We are constantly being lied to. We are being sold wars  we don't want. 
We are having our best social programs cut. Our jobs and tax dollars are
being shipped overseas.  Our treasury is being looted by Wall Street
banks and corporate oligarchs. Our education system at all levels is
being systematically destroyed. Our privacy and personal freedoms are
being whittled away. We are being asked to work harder for less money.
Our minimum wage is so minimum, no one can possibly live on it. We are
told we have to tighten our belts while the rich are carting away
billions from the public till as tax breaks and corporate subsidies.
7-11 clerks and fast food cooks pay higher tax rates than corporate CEOs
and rich Wall Street bankers.

How long does this have to go on before the American people have finally 
had enough?

The typical American citizen is being shafted on so many levels, what
totally astounds me is that there are not outraged mobs in the streets
demanding the heads of the politicians and the cold calculating country
club elites they serve.

Okay . . . okay . . . mass insurrection is not going to happen. At least not for now.

So it seems obvious to me that since we're not going to have a revolution in
this country, the very least we can do is replace the elected officials
in our federal government who have been the cheerleaders and
implementers of these onerous policies. The very least! 

I've stated over and over that we need to replace at least 500 of our
legislators, then put someone in the White House who understands and
serves the needs of all Americans, not just the filthy rich. I've even
dug up that old electoral battle cry: "Throw the bums out!"

As a result, I've had people say I'm extreme . . . out-of-touch . . . radical . . .
and even call me an ungrateful, unpatriotic, American-hating whiner. I get it.
Attack the messenger.

Let's be honest here. If our government on practically every critical front is
headed in completely in the wrong direction and I say it's time to clean
house . . .

Am I extreme?

Am I radical?

Or am I just being realistic?

I am proposing here simple, straightforward tests, applied locally within
each community. These are based on the electoral strategy outlined in my
recent book, "An Unlikely Truth." Just ask yourself . . .

• Did my congressman or senator vote against raising the federal minimum wage?
  If he or she did, it means that this elected official is voting against
  the stated will of 72% of the American voting public. Apparently the
  demands of the greedy businessmen who fill his or her election campaign
  coffers are more important than people being able to earn a decent
  living.

• Did my congressman vote for the Ryan budget in the House or did my senator
  vote for continuing tax breaks for the rich in the Senate? That
  vote would go against the 71% of the voting public who think the wealthy
  should bear more of the burden, as they did for most decades of the
  20th Century. Supporting historically low income tax and capital gains
  tax rates means more money into the pockets of the already wealthy, paid
  for by the rest of us who are struggling to make ends meet. It's Robin
  Hood . . . but in reverse.
  

• Did my congressman or senator vote for a defense budget which included the infamous F-35 advanced fighter jet, arguably the biggest boondoggle in the history of the nation?
  A whopping 75% of American voters want serious cuts in the defense
  budget. Voting for any of the bloated defense appropriations budgets
  means throwing away money on worthless defense projects while schools,
  streets, bridges are crumbling. It's putting bombs and bullets above
  quality of life.
  

• Did my congressman or senator vote for continuing oil subsidies for the oil industry? Alright, profits were a little off last year. So the Big 5 __ BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell __ only made $177,000 per minute.  Cry me a river! That
  added up to $93 billion in total profits. 74% of Americans want the
  government to stop throwing money at the these behemoth corporations and
  insist they start paying their fair share in taxes.
  

• Did my congressman or senator vote for funding attacks on Libya, Syria, Iran,
  the Ukraine or extending the waste of American tax dollars in
  Afghanistan, which 69% of Americans now oppose? Americans are sick of war.
  Fed up! Every dollar spent on these misadventures is one less dollar
  for critical needs here at home. Estimates for the wars in Afghanistan
  and Iraq are in the upwards of $6 trillion __ that's trillion with a 't'. That adds up to 12,000,000 good paying jobs here in America. Think about it!
  

• Did my congressman or senator vote for any legislation which cut benefits,
  raised the eligibility age, or tampered with the rate of increase of
  Social Security payments, for example, the "chained CPI" skullduggery?
  Such a vote, or even thinking about such a vote, is in direct
  opposition to the clear voice of the American people, 79% of which want
  no changes to the most popular and successful federal program in
  history. Putting the squeeze on our elderly, who have worked hard all
  their lives and can barely survive on the pittance that the program now
  provides, may be the most heartless, sinister, pathological proposal to come down the long pike of heartless, sinister,
  pathological proposals. The money to pay benefits would be there if the
  Social Security trust fund had not been raided to pay for unfunded wars
  and tax breaks for the rich, and having everyone's savings replaced by a
  bunch of government security IOUs. More to the point, those responsible
  for this theft should not only not be in public office. They should be
  in prison.
  
• Did my congressman or senator vote against labeling foods that contain GMOs? If he or she did, then this elected official is at odds with 93% of the voting public. Yes . . . I said 93%!
  And keeping people ignorant of what they're eating and exposing them
  to potential health hazards as dictated by the giant food and
  agrochemical conglomerates like Monsanto is the choice your legislator
  is consciously and unconscionably making.

As far as I'm concerned, a 'yes' on any single one of the above questions is a knock out.

Zero tolerance. Time to look elsewhere. Time to stop voting for the same ol' same ol'.

My reasoning is this. If your senator or congressman accepted what is
effectively a bribe __ lobbyist favors, campaign donations, expensive lunches or junkets 
or whatever __ on one critical issue where there exists a major consensus among the 
American voting public and in your voting district, it means that at some time in the 
future, if enough pressure is applied by powerful corporations and their cutthroat lobbyists 
 on other critical matters, your same representative will ignore you, his or her constituents, 
and vote lockstep with moneyed interests. If it happened once, it'll happen again. Politicians 
must be put on notice: We're watching and there is no margin for error. Or chicanery. Or excuses.

Of course, they'll him-and-haw, create a tsunami of obfuscation and evasion to
justify that one "compromise" or trade-off. I say we take the higher
ground and leave the guy to drown in his own bullshit. Then suggest to
Mr. Got-Lotsa-Excuses Legislator we've heard enough, point to the
parking lot and tell him, "Don't let the screen door hit you on the way out."

Remember, elected officials want your vote. They will tell you what you want to
hear to get you to check the box. Too often, once they are in office,
they conveniently forget that the promises they made were in effect a contract
with their constituents. A verbal contract. Based on what they said
they would do, we voted for them. There's a bond of trust and
responsibility operating. And if they can't honor any single one of
those commitments, then why should we trust them to honor any of them __
past, present of future __ after they disappear inside the Washington
bubble?

We have to keep focused . . .

It doesn't matter whether your current congressman or senator has a pleasant
smile, looks dashing when going to church on Sundays, has enchanting TV
ads showing him or her at the local Kiwanis Club annual bake-off
fundraiser, is a model family man or woman, and gosh-by-golly is again this year 
the Grand Marshall for the Independence Day parade down main street of your 
home town.

What does matter is whether he or she is listening to you,
or taking marching orders from the deep-pocketed campaign donors who
pay for those TV ads full of patriotic slogans and empty campaign
promises, those slick video bites and photo ops designed to fool you
once again into voting against your own interests and needs.

Is it extreme to expect honest representation?

Is it radical to want a functioning democracy?

Or is it just realistic to expect our system of government to work for all of us, 
not just the privileged and powerful?

______________________________________________________________


I am doing what I can to address the destruction of our democratic system.

Without taking back our government, nothing will change.

In my new book, An Unlikely Truth,　I offer an electoral strategy which I 
believe can effectively remove the crooks and liars from office, and begin to 
restore representative democracy to America.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) is now available worldwide in 
 every popular ebook format and as a deluxe edition paperback.

Obviously Insane?

 

A definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein getting a lot of attention lately is . . .

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

So every day I get up, read the news, write some comments on Facebook, OpEdNews,
Huffington Post, sign some petitions. Some days I write a blog (that takes up several hours), 
some years I write a book. That means 6 to 8 months of focused work. (My most recent novel, 
"An Unlikely Truth" took about two years to research, then six months to write and re-write.)


This pattern of activity has been going on for several years now. Day after day, I do these same 
things over and over. Each and everyday I check the news, the reports, the updates.

I keep hoping.

But nothing changes.

Well . . . technically it does. Things get worse.

But there you are. The textbook (or comic book) definition of insanity. Doing the same thing 
over and over and expecting a different result.

Sound familiar?

But I figured something out the other day. Maybe I'm not insane.

There is an important concept that applies here. That concept is critical mass.

Adapted from nuclear physics, where a certain critical concentration of fissile material is 
required to create and sustain a nuclear reaction, the sociodynamic concept of critical mass 
is parallel.

Basically, it suggests that there is some level of active participation within society, where 
change occurs and becomes self-sustaining. Estimates of what percentage of the general 
population is sufficient varies. Some say only 5%, others suggest it's more like 20%.

The important thing is that profound change, even huge paradigm shifts, don't necessitate 
100% of the population. An aggressive, focused minority can move mountains. They might 
even be able to move Congress. Wouldn't that be special!

So in terms of our current, highly frustrating political quagmire, let me suggest my own, 
slightly different definition of insanity . . .

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but not having enough other insane people 
doing it to get a different result.

Obviously insane?

Or just hopeful?

______________________________________________________________


I am doing what I can to address the destruction of our democratic system.

Without taking back our government, nothing will change.

In my new book, An Unlikely Truth, I offer an electoral strategy which I believe can 
effectively remove the crooks and liars from office, and begin to restore representative
democracy to America.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) is now available worldwide in
every popular ebook format and as a deluxe edition paperback.

An Unlikely Truth

Democracy at both the local and national levels recently has been under
savage assault. MartinTruth’s fight was but one of many such struggles to 
restore the meaning of representative government to a system that had been 
corrupted by big money and corporate power.

Martin Truth is a bright, young, idealistic, Green Party candidate, who in his
bid for the congressional seat of a very conservative district in Ohio,
teams with a beautiful, brilliant, fiery African-American intern to
combat the slick deceptions and ruthless tactics of a sweet-talking
right wing incumbent.

This is an inspiring story of a small, determined group of  committed 
activists who either never knew or forgot the meaning of the word 'impossible'.
Using a unique and powerful strategy for throwing liars and crooks out
of public office and restoring representative democracy to our
country, politics would never again be the same.

Most importantly, An Unlikely Truthembraces the hope that not all is lost
 __ that there is a “narrative” which can begin to put America back on track, 
render government again of the people, by the people, and for the people.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) is now available worldwide in 
bookstores and online in every popular ebook format, and as a deluxe edition 
paperback.


Pick up your copy now!


As a Kindle ebook from Amazon (US) . . . http://amzn.to/1jetpiY
As a paperback from Amazon (US) . . . http://amzn.to/1lddvsp
As a Kindle ebook from Amazon (UK) . . . http://amzn.to/1lRprh0
As a Kindle ebook from Amazon (Canada) . . . http://amzn.to/1drUBpU
As a Kindle ebook from Amazon (Japan) . . . http://amzn.to/1nFnYyP
As a Nook Book from Barnes & Noble . . . http://bit.ly/1l5FmuG
As a paperback from Barnes & Noble . . . http://bit.ly/1l5FmuG 
As an iBook from the Apple Store . . . http://bit.ly/1gT2O7w
All ebook formats at Smashwords . . . http://bit.ly/1fIU3Mq
As a deluxe paperback direct from printer . . . http://bit.ly/ODoAF8


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Spitball Politics

 

With my new book An Unlikely Truth coming out, I've had a few interesting days recently.

Among several interviews I did last week, I ended up on a right wing radio
talk show. We only had a few minutes but the host immediately challenged
me with . . . "Well, since money is free speech, how can you get the
money out of politics? And why would you want to?"

For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless.

Of course, you and I know the answer to that question. But it's a VERY LONG ANSWER!

It's an answer that goes to the very core of the values each of us hold about
our country, about our system of government, about what democracy means
and how it should function in a free society.

Then something occurred to me.

This guy threw me a spitball.

He fired a pitch covered in slime, lubricated with the mucous of his warped,
partisan, and corporate view of America, meant to slip and slide off any
attempt by me to give it a good smack at least into the outfield, if
not the stands.

Therefore . . . there was no point in even trying to answer it.

If you think that spitballs are not in the spirit of good sportsmanship, not
aligned with the greater good of baseball and fair play, you don't
attempt to discuss it with a pitcher who has just won his last 15 games
throwing the spitball.

You talk to people with some perspective, people who can look at our national
sport, see it as only being fair, competitive, entertaining, and a contribution to 
our culture, when we all recognize that the integrity of the sport is more 
important than winning a particular game.

As a result, it was long ago decided by fair-minded, concerned members of 
the baseball community:

Spitballs are the unsavory choice of slime balls.

And the guys who insisted on throwing them were given an ultimatum:

Stop throwing spitballs or you can't play the game.

It's the same with politics. We can't expect Congress or any of our national
leaders to do the right thing about Citizens United or the corruption
of our system with truckloads of corporate money, when these are the
very people who are benefiting from this heinous mutilation of American
democracy.

If the current crop of lackluster elected officials don't want to play the game
with honesty, distinction, respect for the American people, and
reverence for representative democracy, they shouldn't be allowed to
play the game.

Spitball politics in the form of legalized bribery by lobbyists, play-for-pay
politicians, and corruption of our political system by deep-pocketed
oligarchs, is destroying America, or at bare minimum turning it into
something we barely recognize.

No more spitball politics, I say.

If our current crop of weak-kneed elected officials don't have the courage and
integrity to adopt sportsmanlike rules by legislatively ending Citizens
United immediately, they don't belong in the game.

If a politician can't embrace and play by sportsmanlike rules, one strike and he's out!

______________________________________________________________

I am doing what I can to address the destruction of our democratic system.

Without taking back our government, nothing will change.

In my new book, An Unlikely Truth, I offer an electoral strategy which I believe 
can effectively remove the crooks and liars from office, and begin to restore 
representative democracy to America.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) will be released worldwide on March 24th.



[ This originated at the author's personal blog site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]